Please may I have one more?

I'm seeing my parents after 2 months and I miss them. Mom asked me what I wanted to eat and I almost said, "Papa's Special Sandwiches". When I was a kid, every single day of the week, we had huge breakfasts. Eggs (fried, scrambled, omelettes, boiled whatever), toast and butter, cheese, jam, honey, seasonal fruits and bananas (especially after mom was prescribed bananas everyday for potassium to strengthen her bones), cereal, porridge, milk, one Indian thing like poha, upma, uttapams, idlis, plantain cutlets, vegetable croquettes or chilas and the most flavorful darjeeling tea.

Sunday was always a special breakfast day. We often had jalebis, one heavy Indian breakfast dish, eggs and more often than not, Papa's special sandwiches. In my family, Papa was the official sandwich maker. His sandwiches were yummy and even when I and my sister were at our rebellious highly strung teenager best, we succumbed to those sandwiches. Those sandwiches were never planned into the menu, they just happened. When Papa had that sandwich gleam in his eyes, we would all sit still and wait for our sandwich made to our specification with Papa urging us to have just a little bit of any food type we were then protesting against. He would start by slicing cucumbers, enlisting Mom's help to slice the tomatoes, because he could never cut tomatoes into fine slices the way Mom did. Then out came the onions, and we would wrinkle and start listing our demands. Then Papa would peep into the refridgerator and look for his secret ingredients. Sometimes it would be vegetable croquettes, sometimes plantain cutlets, sometimes fried eggs, sometimes boiled eggs, sometimes baked potatoes, sometimes lettuce, sometimes salami, sometimes sausages. Then he would start layering the sandwich. Mom would start spreading the butter, and Papa would assemble each layer carefully. Then he would sprinkle a smidgen of salt, pepper, chat masala, churan or even garlic salt. Then he would put a fat piece of cheese, pour some ketchup and close the sandwich and ask who wanted the first one. The process would continue until we ran out of ingredients. Later when we got a griller, the sandwiches would be grilled. Even my Mom, normally a very picky eater wanted seconds when Papa made sandwiches.

Our bitterest fights would meet a truce when Papa would declare, "ok, I'm making sandwiches, does anyone want a bite?" We would scramble to the dining table to get our specifications right. So, when I go home, I would love to have a sandwich breakfast once again, even though my father is much too busy and my sister and brother will not be home.